Search the Community

Client is surviving spouse. We believe her to be the beneficiary of a large account held in a "PSP." Husband and his attorney are both deceased. Life insurance salesman who sold them on the nonstandardized plan created by life insurance company is senile. Only papers related to plan date back to 2000. Those include some 5500s. We have contacted the insurance company and it cannot produce the nonstandardized plan, let alone the adoption agreement. We don't think it will ever be capable of being reproduced. Likely that the plan just went totally silent after about 2001, but no contact we can find in deceased's files from the IRS. Further, the small 3 person company that sponsored the plan is no longer and no one can be found. The investment firm holding the account says, "produce the plan document" before it will do anything. No plan document exists. What to do? One take I have is to say, "There is no plan document, hence, it's a after-tax account. Make a distribution and don't report on a 1099-R. I've read in this forum about the King case and the issues of "consistency" but, if I can convince the investment firm that it is an after-tax account, perhaps they would distribute the account to the surviving spouse. I do have an issue with not having a beneficiary designation, it appears. But, I do have a letter from way back from the attorney indicating that the deceased husband's revocable trust is the beneficiary. The King case might allow me to argue that if the plan went out of compliance from the get go due to lack of a document, that cash contributed was taxable in a closed tax year. And, now, the distributions are tax free from the account. We can't establish that a plan ever existed but there are just a couple of returns that the deceased attorney prepared (1997, 2000 and 2001). Nothing after. We have exhausted our search and I have concluded no documentation will ever be found. Thoughts?

I am trying to help a 50 year friend of my wife. Her deceased 2nd husband was a 50 year friend of mine. Our friend, lets call her "L", got divorced in 2001. her ex-husband worked for Dade Behring. As part of her divorce settlement there was a QDRO set up. DB instructed "Merrill Lynch/Howard Johnson & Co" (record keeper for the plan) to set up a "cash balance plan" in her name. Set up in 2001 and by 2003 had grown about 7K to a total of 55K. L moved from MD to FL for 2002, 2003, 2004. L moved back to MD in 2004. L contends she forwarded her new MD address to DB but never got any other correspondence from them in MD. After her move from FL, hurricane/flooding at the lake area, the FL address no longer exists. One of her original choices on the DB letter was to (do nothing) wait until no later than 70 1/2 to take distribution. L elected to wait till 60 and has searched everywhere for this QDRO account. Dade Behring was bought by Siemens Co somewhere in 2008-9 time frame. There is nobody at DB, they are gone. Her SSN is not listed at; Siemens, Merrill Lynch, Fidelity, Prudential, Pension Rights Center, US Dept of Laboror Pension Benefits Guarantee Corp. They all contend to know nothing about her or the QDRO. We sent a fax to Siemens Co back on Dec 12, 2014. As of today they don't have a resolution and say they are investigating. Where can we track this QDRO? We have the signed, sealed QDRO in our possession. We have made 100+ calls, spent endless hours, and sent out faxes and letters with information. Still nothing. Where do we turn next? PS- our friend L does not have a computer or know how to use the internet. My Wife & I are her main avenue for finding this.